[Edu-sig] Blogs, Videos, Songs and Documentaries for your viewing pleasure!

A. Jorge Garcia calcpage at aol.com
Sat Aug 13 23:12:15 CEST 2011


kirby urner <kirby.urner at gmail.com> wrote:

On Thu, Aug 11, 2011 at 4:59 PM, A. Jorge Garcia <calcpage at aol.com> wrote:
> Here's my blogs about Learning and Teaching Math and Computing with
> technology!
> http://shadowfaxrant.blogspot.com/2011/07/taking-show-on-road.html

Really glad you're collecting and posting these in one place.

Great to getting a read on technology in the classroom, as used by a pro who
also bucks the system, doesn't sucker for vendor lock-in at every turn e.g.
knows free Ubuntu has viable real time desktop capturing mp4 capability.

> http://shadowfaxrant.blogspot.com/2011/08/flipping-classroom-to-flip-or-not-to.html

( might be a mistake in the Java on this one myBody += myBody + etc.)

> http://shadowfaxrant.blogspot.com/2011/06/screencasting-101-to-be-or-not-to-be.html
> http://shadowfaxrant.blogspot.com/2011/08/fare-thee-well-summer-session-ii.html
> http://shadowfaxrant.blogspot.com/2011/08/fare-thee-well-summer-session-ii-part-2.html
> http://shadowfaxrant.blogspot.com/2011/08/fare-thee-well-summer-session-ii-part-3.html
>

My storyboard school in the Oregon high desert (branch campus) is quite bicycle
centric, with students coming back with lots of data.

Bicycles and riders are likely equipped with sensors, are outfitted
for GPS navigation.

Two of our cyclers just came back from Yamhill county, 4 days in farm
and forest
lands, harvesting data (this is real, not storyboard).

GIS was used, but no real time GPS this time, and no sensors were left behind.

Tags: Project Earthala, Dignity Village, EPCOT West, XRL (eXtremely
Remote Living)

The goal is to build up an electronic, interactive representation of
the surrounding
ecosystem and to use it in association with county engineers to
implement various
new energy harvesting technologies, such as the solar steam dish from Infinia
(sterling engine), various dwelling machine solutions (or call them
tents, yurts or
whatever).

Note: urban schools may accept the same challenge.

Urban geocaching is already a recognized sport.

A professor from Rochester and I had a long talk with the CTO of Immersive
Media (Portland office) about their back pack dodeca-cams, not unlike those
on Google Cars.

The files generated by these things (devices) go to the school's rack for
stitching together in student-faculty designed mashups. As an intranet, our
installation closely models a GIS shop, perhaps with ESRI products
(a Python angle).

Imagine hiking trails tagged with immersive media files such that campsites
might be viewed "on tape" even just by dialing in coordinates, or hitting a
blip on the map (shared / projected). Yes, like Picassa.

> Here's my preCalculus, Calculus and CompSci screen-casts!
> http://www.youtube.com/calcpage2009
>
> Here's some math and computer songs my studemts made for YouTube!
> http://www.youtube.com/cistheta2007#g/c/8E2A8DE4C0DA6B2A
> http://www.youtube.com/cistheta2007#g/c/FBA85F4CD27E8D4A
>
> Here's some computer documentaries I saved from crumbling VHS tapes for
> YouTube!
> http://www.youtube.com/cistheta2007#g/c/35534A5E32FB49A4
>
> Thanx,
> A. Jorge Garcia
> Applied Math and CompSci
> http://shadowfaxrant.blogspot.com
> http://www.youtube.com/calcpage2009
>

Our "math is an outdoor sport" tagline goes with this camp / school
blend where we encourage lots of physical activity in connection
with computation and statistical analysis, with calculus for curves.
Also goes with the BarCamp metaphor.

The so-called "self quantification movement" (quite visible at
OSCON 2011 already) is feeding into this lineage as well.
Runners like uploading and sharing their sensor data. Athletes
are forever comparing stats, and that's math, stats, bioinformatics.

Our two cyclers are foodies and each was testing a diet.

STEM is deliberately a blend and working hard to keep each
subject distinct from the others has that "bad old days" flavor
of when people hyper-specialized. "Is this computer science
or bio-engineering?" -- why would you need to bog down in
such questions?

The majors we seek to attract have environmental science
concerns and a lot of the sensors we're installing have a
biometric angle.

If you saw the movie 'Gasland' you know there's a lot to be
monitored and modeled -- an ongoing project in multiple
counties.

No one private organization has jurisdiction, especially given
all the public lands involved, not forgetting public air. Plenty
of room for school involvement, with universities winning
contracts, receiving grants.

You might see more of these schools popping up in the
Stans or Nigeria for example (some UN funding), as these
student populations are just as concerned about environmental
quality, and are just as capable of running Ubuntu etc.

http://mybizmo.blogspot.com/2010/08/foss-in-afghanistan.html

Oregon hikers are increasingly ask for wifi / cell in the
wilderness and that's giving eco-scientists (STEM students)
more options with webcams, weather stations, air and water
quality sensors etc.

Anyway, just painting a picture of the memes I'm harvesting
when watching your videos.

What if we just have like a bed sheet strung between trees for
a screen, with camp and star light for backdrop? We want
to learn Python, in conjunction with an API for pulling up
data about the ecosystem (called "place based education"
in the literature).

Should we aim for more portable projection capability?

Or should we design certain sites to have geocached equipment
accessible to those with the right "treasure maps"?

Lots to think about.

Link to mathfuture:
http://groups.google.com/group/mathfuture/browse_thread/thread/ebafa7896fd9ca74

Kirby
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Holy cow! That's high praise indeed from the great Kirby! Yes, I have a rep for bucking the system, but they let me get away with it as I have a good track record! This will be my 28th year teaching in New York State public schools and I have 6 to go before retirement. I don't know how much longer I can buck the system with all these new teacher evaluation procedures...

BTW, you are correct about the 'myBody +=' issue. I forgot it was on that video. We did correct it in the next class but I didn't record it. I've been screencasting my Math classes mostly over the last 5 years or so. Maybe next year's screencasting project will be CompSci.
Thanx,
A. Jorge Garcia
Applied Math and CompSci
http://shadowfaxrant.blogspot.com
http://www.youtube.com/calcpage2009
Sent via DROID on Verizon Wireless
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